Thread: Philly: Soc.worker charged in child's death, is ILLEGAL

ocial worker in Danieal Kelly case faces deportation
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
A privately employed social worker charged with eight others in the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly was in federal custody yesterday facing deportation, accused of lying on his application for U.S. citizenship.
Julius Juma Murray, 51, was arrested Aug. 5 by immigration agents and charged with making a false statement under oath when he applied for a U.S. visa in 1997 and in his naturalization application on July 10.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Murray was scheduled for a hearing today before a federal judge in Philadelphia.
Murray, of Upper Darby, was one of two employees of a private social-services company, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health Inc., charged in Kelly's death.
MultiEthnic - now closed - was under contract to the city Department of Human Services, and Murray was assigned as the social worker helping provide care to Kelly and her eight siblings.
Instead, alleged the July 31 grand-jury report that resulted in the criminal charges, Murray provided so little care he was almost a "ghost employee."
Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter, criminal conspiracy, endangering the welfare of children, and a series of counts involving record-tampering.
Also charged was Mikal Kamuvaka, 59, a founder of MultiEthnic, which got $3.5 million from DHS from 2001 until its contracts were ended after Kelly's Aug. 4, 2006, death.
Kamuvaka is a native of Namibia. At a hearing Monday in Municipal Court, a city prosecutor argued unsuccessfully that she was a flight risk and should be on electronic monitoring because Namibia has no extradition treaty with the United States. Kamuvaka was freed on $200,000 bail and surrendered her passport.
Kelly had cerebral palsy and lived in West Philadelphia with her mother, Andrea Kelly, and siblings when she died. Authorities determined that Danieal Kelly, her body pocked with festering bedsores, starved to death in her bed. The 14-year-old weighed 42 pounds - as much as the typical 5-year-old.
Andrea Kelly, 39, was charged with murder and her estranged husband, Daniel Kelly, 37, with child endangerment. The District Attorney's Office also charged two DHS social workers and three of Andrea Kelly's friends.
Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann, a prosecutor in the Kelly case, said the federal charges against Murray would have no effect on his office's prosecution. McCann said Murray could not be deported until the Kelly case was over.
Federal court documents say Murray entered the United States at Newark, N.J., on a non-immigrant visitor visa from his native Sierra Leone in September 1992.
When Murray's visa expired in August 1993, the documents read, he sought asylum but was ordered deported when he did not show at his Dec. 5, 1996, deportation hearing.
A month later, the documents continue, Murray's attorney sent immigration officials a copy of a plane ticket and said Murray was flying home on Jan. 26, 1997.
Authorities now allege that Murray never left the United States. Instead, Murray showed up at U.S. immigration offices in New York City on April 27, 1997, under the name Julius J.M. Murray and applied for an immigrant alien visa.
In completing the form, the court documents allege, Murray swore he had never before visited or lived in the United States.

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Posted on Fri, Aug. 15, 2008


Deportation hearing for social worker next week

Julius Juma Murray, a privately employed social worker charged with eight others in the starvation death of Danieal Kelly, won't face a deportation hearing in Philadelphia until next week.
> Murray, 51, of Upper Darby, is being held at a detention center in Lackawanna County on charges that he lied on papers for U.S. citizenship. Immigration agents must first transport him to Philadelphia before he can appear in federal court as early as Monday, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

> Kelly, a 14-year-old cerebral palsy patient, weighed 42 pounds when she died at home in West Philadelphia on Aug. 4, 2006. Murray, one of her caseworkers, provided so little care that he was almost a "ghost employee," according to a grand-jury report.

> Murray entered the United States in 1992 from Sierra Leone on a visitor's visa, according to court documents. He left the United States briefly, then returned in 1997 after obtaining permanent resident status for this country while in Sierra Leone, according to U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Patty Hartman. Authorities have charged Murray with lying on a form that was part of the immigration application process in August 1996, Hartman said. - Bonnie L. Cook

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